Handling Complaints and Irate Customers in 2023

I just tried to buy another Bluetooth headset for my son for his birthday at Best Buy. The employee was not very effective. He could not find my account after giving him my phone number 3 times. I asked for a manager. It took him a few seconds to find my account and I told him I wanted his help because the employee was ineffective and did not know his job.

The manager would not help me and insisted I apologize to the employee which I would not. He refused to let me buy the $247 headset so I went to Amazon, placed the order, and had it delivered to his home in Estes Park Colorado. I guess I was crazy to not just go to Amazon first. I had a 2 year warranty at Best Buy I took out in January on the previous headset which my son lost in less than 3 weeks after buying the $100 warranty that I wanted to take advantage of.

The manager, Chalpulke asked me several times to lower my voice. The funny thing is I was not raising my voice. Very few employees have been trained to handle complaints and irate customers. Most could care less if they lose a customer. This manager refused to let me buy unless I apologized to an employee who was incompetent. What is worse he lied saying the system doesn’t always work to cover for the employee. In the US I find that a huge percentage of employees lie when there is a problem.

The first employee was not trained on how to use Best Buy’s systems. I had NO confidence in him. The Feelings Concept is based on 6 skills.

Listening to the customer was the first problem. I suspect the employee never listened to my phone number even though I gave it slowly to him at least 3 times. The second is to learn everything about your job. You can tell in seconds if an employee does not know what they are doing. I was at the checkout Best Buy area and he obviously did not know how to use the system.

This Richfield Minnesota store is their flagship store about four blocks from the corporate headquarters. They just spent millions redesigning the interior of the store. Their mistake is they spent NO money training their staff on how to handle customers or how to deliver great customer service.

The manager in this situation’s attitude was to protect the employee. He could care less if I never came back. Most employees feel customers are a dime a dozen. Who cares if you lose a few customers a day? The employees never knew what I wanted to buy. I figured if the employee could not find my account, what I was trying to buy would be way over his head.

The manager taught the employee that the customer was wrong. It’s OK to refuse to sell to a customer. You do not need to know your job and the manager will protect you. You can blow the customer off even if they don’t want to work with you. Service Quality Institute has a program called Handling Irate Customers, if you would like to train your staff on handling complaints and irate customers,

I called the store but they would not let me talk to the store manager. Never complain to an employee. It is a waste of time. Very few customers complain. They just never come back. It costs 10 times more money to get a new customer than to keep one. Make it easy for a customer to submit a complaint.  The Richfield store and its corporate headquarters had no way to complain. This is really stupid.

In 1979 when I developed the world’s first customer service program, Feelings,  companies were spending millions of dollars on advertising and capital improvements and as the customer walked in the store they (figuratively) issued baseball bats to hit the customer on the head so they would not come back. In 2023 it is the same as in 1979. I think customer service is maybe worse today. Very few companies want to compete with Amazon. A $44.2 billion increase in sales in 2022 I guess is too much for most firms. Most CEOs do not want to have a $149 billion dollar net worth like Jeff Bezos. I guess too much money.

Intellectually all employees know customer service is critical. They just don’t deliver a great customer experience.